e
pride of Allaster MacGregor, the chief of the clan, was so much lowered
by the sufferings of his people, that he resolved to surrender himself to
the Earl of Argyle, with his principal followers, on condition that they
should be sent out of Scotland. If the unfortunate chief's own account be
true, he had more reasons than one for expecting some favour from the
Earl, who had in secret advised and encouraged him to many of the
desperate actions for which he was now called to so severe a reckoning.
But Argyle, as old Birrell expresses himself, kept a Highlandman's
promise with them, fulfilling it to the ear, and breaking it to the
sense. MacGregor was sent under a strong guard to the frontier of
England, and being thus, in the literal sense, sent out of Scotland,
Argyle was judged to have kept faith with him, though the same party
which took him there brought him back to Edinburgh in custody.

MacGregor of Glenstrae was tried before the Court of Justiciary, 20th
January 1604, and found guilty. He appears to have been instantly
conveyed from the bar to the gallows; for Birrell, of the same date,
reports that he was hanged at the Cross, and, for distinction sake, was
suspended higher by his own height than two of his kindred and friends.

On the 18th of February following, more men of the MacGregors were
executed, after a long imprisonment, and several others in the beginning
of March.

The Earl of Argyle's service, in conducting to the surrender of the
insolent and wicked race and name of MacGregor, notorious common
malefactors, and in the in-bringing of MacGregor, with a great many of
the leading men of the clan, worthily executed to death for their
offences, is thankfully acknowledged by an Act of Parliament, 1607, chap.
16, and rewarded with a grant of twenty chalders of victual out of the
lands of Kintire.

The MacGregors, notwithstanding the letters of fire and sword, and orders
for military execution repeatedly directed against them by the Scottish
legislature, who apparently lost all the calmness of conscious dignity
and security, and could not even name the outlawed clan without
vituperation, showed no inclination to be blotted out of the roll of
clanship. They submitted to the law, indeed, so far as to take the names
of the neighbouring families amongst whom they happened to live,
nominally becoming, as the case might render it most convenient,
Drummonds, Campbells, Grahams, Buchanans, Stewarts, and the like;